West Coast Adventures

Happy Tuesday and for those of you who had yesterday off, I hope that you had a great long weekend! I had an adventure filled several days actually, and drove more last weekend than I have in a couple of months! First was a stop to Grass Valley, a town where gold was discovered in 1850. Their main mine, the Empire Mine was the richest hard rock mine in California, producing 5.8 million ounces of gold in its operating history of 106 years. Just to put that in perspective, currently one ounce of gold is sold for about $2,000.00! I spent a couple of days spending time with family, playing games and hiking around Empire Mine, which is now a park with dirt paths for hiking. 

Mill St. Grass Valley in December

Next, I headed to Monterey and Carmel for the annual MLK girls trip with K, A & L. We had a great time searching through the tidepools for fancy shells, eating candy, playing in the waves and watching the sea otters try to crack things while floating on their backs (they are so cute!) We also drove the 17 mile drive, which winds along the coast and has some great views! I think the girls were happier to just find shells on the beach and were not as impressed by the drive, but we had fun all the same! It rained a bit on Saturday and Sunday, but overall we had pretty good weather and I even got a tad burnt! 

Carmel Beach

Lone Cypress Tree - 17 Mile Drive

L looking for otters at the Monterey pier.

On Monday, I went with a friend to hike San Francisco's crosstown trail, which is a 17 mile trail that goes from Candlestick Point, which is on the southeast side of town to the Cliff House, which is on the northwest side of town. 

Crosstown trail map (found here)

It is actually a really cool taste of the city, and goes through some neighborhoods and parks that I had never been in before. It also tries to go on a lot of dirt, so it would randomly just pop into the trees on a path that you may not have even noticed. It also went on a lot of hidden stairways (which I have talked about before) and I found some of those too that I had not been on before. All in all, it was a great way to see the city in a different way than I had seen. However, it did go through some of the places on my 10 things to do in San Francisco list too, for example, we went on Irving Street and stopped there for pho!  

16th Ave. tiled steps - very cool mosaic! 

16th Ave. stairs with Ocean Beach in background.

Moraga stairs with downtown San Francisco in background.

Ocean Beach

This was the second "town tour" walk I have done in the last month; the first was the same kind of thing in the city of Pacifica on new year's weekend. So now I think I need to make one or find one for Oakland and that can be the next one in the tour of the town series! Maybe I will try to include some of my favorite nooks and crannies on my next tour! 

How was your weekend!? Have you ever been to the California coast? Have you ever done a walking tour or a long walk around the neighborhoods of your town? 

What is a Regular Weekend Anyway?

Thank you to all who commented on my last post. I am taking all of your advice into consideration! However, I am still doing some digging, so if you have not weighed in yet, you can still go here and let me know your thoughts. 

Last weekend was a long one and it gave me the perfect opportunity to get some stuff done and still have fun too! I was thinking about what a regular weekend around here looks like and of course it depends on the weekend, but a regular weekend at home generally looks like this: prepping meals for the next week, laundry, house cleaning, working in the yard, a run (or two), reading, working on the purging project, and meeting up with friends for a hike/run/coffee. However, weekends lately have been a little different! 

Remember my post about being uncomfortable? Since I wrote that post, I have been even more uncomfortable! That ride was about 40 miles; after that was a success, on New Years weekend, I decided to ride to my brother's house in Santa Rosa, which is about 70 miles away from where I live. Before I started, since it was supposed to be a little wet, I got new tires and put them on Bertha. A quick backstory: Bertha is old, maybe even older than me, but I am not really sure, as I have been told that it is rude to ask a lady her age. She is a ten speed, of which maybe only three of the speeds work and her brakes have not been changed the whole time I have had her, which has been about ten years. So she is not really in tip top shape, but she gets the job done. 

The day that I planned on starting, Mother Nature was not having it; you may recall that this was the weekend where we were hit with the bomb cyclone? So I had to wait a day and shorten the ride, but in the end, I started off bright and early on Saturday morning from Richmond point and went across the Richmond bridge for the 2nd time in less than a month. Surprisingly the weather was good, the winds were in my favor and I got through San Rafael with no issues. 

I don't really know (but am learning!) what normal cyclists use for navigation, but I used Google maps and kept my headphone in while riding so that I could hear the directions as I went. Sometimes they are confusing, like when she says, "turn right, then left" but really she means, "stay on the same path" so I did go the wrong way a couple of times since I was not actually looking at the map, but generally it was fairly easy to follow. My route took me through San Rafael, Novato and Petaluma before putting me on Stony Point road, which was 14 miles long and actually went straight to Santa Rosa and almost right to my brother's house. 

Once I arrived there, we took a shake out walk and went for New Years Day pho before relaxing in the hot tub and then in front of a movie with ice cream. Broski and Mrs. Broski always treat me right. 

The next day, I got up early and left as it was supposed to start raining again at 11 am and I wanted none of that. I had gear and everything but one of my fears is slipping on the wet street and falling in the middle of traffic, or even just on the ground on a hard bike path or street. Not to say I will never ride in the rain but for now I would like to avoid it when I can. It was great riding back along Stony Point with the sun rising and no cars on the road. 

As I said above, my route generally followed frontage or access roads near highway 101, but often took me into the downtown areas of the towns I went through and I will not lie, although I have been to and driven through these towns before, I had never been to some of their downtowns and they are very cute. For example, Petaluma has a nice old town downtown with cute shops and everything! I will have to come back to explore more as I was trying to outrun the rain, but who knew! Petaluma also had a bathroom that was open, which I was very grateful for, as I had made a pitstop in the bushes the day before. 

I got back to Richmond only slightly damp and it actually started raining shortly after that. Score. What are my takeaways? I learned that I am not a fan of padded bike shorts. So, when I say uncomfortable, I really do mean physically this time. I nicknamed them my "diaper" and have a few TMI things to tell you about this. First of all, did you know that you are supposed to wear them without underwear? I can't tell you how glad I am to get to my destination and take off the shorts and put on underwear. It's my new favorite thing. I learned that I need new brakes, which I have since bought and not yet installed. 

One of the most useful things I have learned on this adventure but also in life, is that you don't need special or fancy equipment to start a new adventure. You just need to try it with what you have! I put a change of clothes and some tools in a dry bag, strapped it to the back of the bike with a bungee and used that as my "paniers," I clearly do not have a state of the art bike, I wear old running shoes (another use rather than gardening!) and I wear whatever is comfortable. I get passed by sleek riders, dressed in fancy matching spandex with $16,000 bikes made of air, as I huff and puff on my 57 pound bike up a hill with my lowest of three gears. But you know what, I arrive home tired and happy and proud of myself for not letting any of that stop me. Not to get on a tangent here, but the same goes for everything! Don't let the lack of gear or the lack of experience or the fear of looking silly hold you back. 

Total miles: 105 (54 + 51)
Time taken:  10 hours (5.5 + 4.5)
Bridges crossed: 1, but I crossed it twice (Richmond)
Modes of transport: 2 (car to Richmond, bike)
Map of my trip: https://caltopo.com/m/E803B 

What does your regular weekend look like? What does your out of the box/adventure weekend look like? 

L'hôtel de Lisa

Since last weekend was a long weekend, I took advantage and went to see Lisa in Charlotte. If you read her blog, you know she has been missing her home city of Minneapolis, so we thought a little get together and some girl time would be just the ticket.

You may have read the news last week? Charlotte was having a "bit" of bad weather and the airport was cancelling flights in and out like crazy. However, on Friday morning when I flew out of San Francisco, it was all systems go. Our flight was full and I was one of the last people on the plane, so when they said there would not be room for carry on bags, I dutifully checked mine.

I arrived to Detroit and turned on my phone. "Your flight from Detroit to Charlotte has been cancelled."

Darn it.

I called the Delta hotline, while at the same time checking out the departures board. There was only one other flight to Charlotte and it was overbooked and it was scheduled to leave about 20 minutes ago. There were flights to a couple of cities about 150 miles away from Charlotte, but they were all booked. The only flight left was to Raleigh. I secured the Raleigh ticket and went to the counter of the prior flight to try to see if I could get onto the earlier one by chance. There were so many people there and I waited at the help desk until they were almost all the way boarded, so I never thought I would get on. However, I got to the desk and the lady said my name was already on the list! I asked about my bag and she said there was no way it was going to be on the plane with me. I didn't care; I was on the plane!

Luckily Lisa is the same size as me, because in the next 48 hours, I had to borrow a lot of stuff! It was like being in a hotel; I had a toothbrush and jammies and everything! It was better than staying at the Westin. However, we didn't let a little thing like lost luggage slow us down. On Friday, we had Lentil Enchiladas and a really good corn, bean and avocado salad (which also was a very good chip dipper). They were delicious and thank goodness we both like spicy food, because the jalapenos were a nice addition (and kick) to the dish.

Saturday we had planned on an outdoor run, but due to the recent snow, we were forced to do a treadmill run. I had to borrow Lisa's shoes so we took turns. It was a long treadmill run and I was really glad to be done. Soon after, we headed out to Asheville where our first stop was the Biltmore.

Biltmore

This was home to George Vanderbilt and is the largest home in the USA. It has something like 250 rooms and over 40 bathrooms. It was fun to explore the grounds, even though it was pretty cold and the gardens were not at their best. However, there was a really cool greenhouse full of exotic plants, including hundreds of orchids. We did an audio tour of the inside of the house, which was fascinating and includes a bowling alley and indoor pool, as well as a really interesting servants quarters.

Downtown Asheville

Next stop was downtown Asheville, where our first stop was The Gourmet Chip Company, where we got homemade potato chips with goat cheese, rosemary, thyme and sea salt. They were so good! Next we headed to Tupelo Honey for some down home southern food and some local craft beers! My favorite things there were easily the homemade biscuit and the Green Man IPA.

I recommend the Parisian

And if that wasn't enough, we decided to pop on down to French Broad Chocolates for some dark chocolate ganache hot chocolate and a coconut macaroon chocolate brownie.

source

The next morning while Lisa was at church, I wandered around and took some photos. Asheville is a cute little town, that is nicknamed "the Berkeley of North Carolina". While I am not sure it's exactly like Berkeley, I can see where the name comes from. There are a ton of fun places to eat, lots of local coffee shops and a small town, rustic vibe, along with a plethora of gluten free and vegan options.

Downtown Asheville

After brunch at Cafe 64, which had serve yourself, all you can drink coffee (I am a total fan!) we headed back toward Charlotte, with a quick stop for a hike at Crowder's Mountain. Afterward, she took me to one of her favorite food spots where we got fish tacos and I tried another local brew. We headed home for some Super G on the tube and ended the day with a couple of medals for the USA, and some Dove dark chocolate squares. You can't get much better than that.

Crowders

All too soon, it was time to go home! We had a chilly morning run and then I was back on the plane heading for the West Coast. It seemed like I wasn't even there for very long but we sure packed a lot of fun (and eating!) into the weekend.

Have you ever been to North Carolina? What did you do for the long weekend? What's your favorite Olympic sport? 

Edited to add: You can read Lisa's recap here. 

R & R

Last week was scheduled to be my highest mileage week before starting the big taper for the Firetrails 50 mile race, which is in three weeks (eek). As I have mentioned before, things have been busy at work and it's been hard to fit any miles in at all, never mind a large amount of miles, so I was kind of looking forward to getting this week over with so I can start to return to a normal weekly mileage again.

However, I was also excited, because it would be my highest weekly mileage ever. It was going to be a 60 mile week.

But it wasn't in the cards. On Monday I started getting a cold, so I took the week easier than planned. I ran a 10 mile run on Tuesday in the city; it was a beautiful clear day. I got up on Thursday morning for a nice and early (and dark) 10 mile run before work, which I am really loving. It is really (really!) hard to get up any earlier than I already do, but man, the run in the dark and the silence, with the lack of cars, and being part of the early morning city activities (delivery, street cleaners, sleepless elderly folks out for their morning stroll) is really special.

On Friday I came straight home from work and got in my PJs and went to bed. I actually think I was asleep by about 9 o'clock. That is, after I drank about 248 liters of liquids! I tried it all; juice, tea, water, theraflu and soup. I was determined to get rid of this thing!

I got up Saturday and met up with Broski for a run in the Marin Headlands. There was a 50k we were going to run, but Broski works in the wine industry and they are in the middle of harvest, so we couldn't take that long of a run. The forecast called for rain around 8 am, but it was supposed to move through really fast so we figured it wouldn't matter if we got a little wet. We started around 6:30 and it was kind of misty/foggy for the first half an hour and then it just started pouring! It rained on us for roughly the next 3 hours (out of 4) and it was an interesting run to say the least. There were not a lot of great views but the rain also kept all the weekend hikers off the trails. We had them nearly all to ourselves. On this day, my cold was not too bad; and being in the woods made it easy to do a couple farmer's blows from time to time! I ended up running about 23 miles, which was longer than planned but the loop we took ended up being longer than we thought. We rewarded ourselves with a burrito before going our separate ways. I never say no to a burrito. Plus, isn't the saying, "starve a fever, feed a cold...a burrito"?

I got home, took a shower and got back into bed. It was kind of nice to finally have a relaxing weekend! I watched Midnight in Paris (which was a pretty good movie). I finished Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang (which was entertaining) and started another book. I got some laundry done. I watched the first season of House of Lies. Yup, I watched a lot of TV, ate, drank and relaxed. It was great!

Sunday I slept in and was feeling much better, so I met up with some friends for brunch and a walk and then went for another run around the neighborhood. Ironically, after Saturday's rain, it was perfectly clear and warm on Sunday. However, my legs were pretty tired and my heart wasn't really into it, so I cut it a little shorter than I had planned.

I would like to say I reached my goal of 60 miles, but I didn't. Sometimes life just gets in the way! However, I did get in some good mileage and some good rest, as well as having a great weekend with good friends. Now, let's bring on the taper!

How was your week? Did you get everything done that you wanted to do?

Hood Mountain & Mt. Tam

My family likes to scale tall things. I have mentioned before how my Dad and his friends like to climb to the highest points in each state, but we also like to climb anything tall. Or taller than something else. Or not tall at all. So...pretty much anything.

For instance, we have climbed to the top of Mt Shasta before. The last time we did it was June of 2009. So we figured we were about due for another trip. (However, I just read the recap from last time and I realize it's funny how easily we forget how difficult things are!)

Base camp is at approximately 7,000 ft. The top is at 14,179 ft. It really is pretty much straight up on the way up and if you are lucky, it is snowy, and you can glissade (slide on your butt) half of the way down. That's an approximate elevation gain of 7,000 feet. After races like this, it would seem easy, right? It's not. The high elevation really takes every bit of energy you've got out of you.

So Broski and I are "training" a bit. We never intended to train, but I had a free day a few weeks ago, and he and I decided to hike what we thought** was the tallest mountain in his county, Sonoma County. This is called Hood Mountain (#1), and is about 2,733 feet.

1: Hood, 2: Tam, 3: Diablo

It was approximately 3 miles each way and the day we did it, it was about 100 degrees. We did not bring enough water and there was no water along the way. To top that off, I ran into a poison oak bush with my face near the top and so we ran down to try to get to a stream to rinse it before the oils set in. However, it was a pretty cool hike. From the top you can see Napa Valley, Sonoma Valley and the Pacific Ocean. (**note: the tallest one is actually Mt. Saint Helena at 4,342 ft. Boy were we off by a few feet!)

View from the top of Hood Mountain

Next up was Marin County, where the tallest is Mt. Tam (#2), at 2,574 ft. As a sidenote, there is a really famous trail race called the Dipsea, which I will actually probably tell you more about tomorrow because otherwise this post is going to be way too long... Let's just say that we took the long way to the top of Mt. Tam (via the Dipsea trail), so our hike lasted all day. It was a great hike though, taking us past the ocean, through the redwoods, and to the top of many a grassy knoll. If we would have went straight up, it would have been about a 2,500 ft elevation gain, but we took a detour, which caused our climb to be about 5,000 ft instead. This hike took us about 9 hours, since we did the detour, which caused our total mileage to be about 22 miles.

This time we brought enough water. In fact, Broski carried about 8 liters (and two beers!) and I carried 2.5 liters. We were so paranoid after the dehydration from Hood Mountain! However, there were places to fill up your water this time. But we were really glad we brought our own because we froze all the bottles so we would have cold water and it was so nice, since it was about 90 degrees that day and was really dusty to boot!

From the top -- with view of the TINY city in the background

Up next is Mt. Diablo (#3), the tallest in Contra Costa county, at 3,849 ft (source). We are ready!

I am not sure this will truly ready us for the thin air of Mt. Shasta, but it's worth a shot and it's fun to do regardless of whether or not it's helping! Of course it's much easier to hike with a tiny Nathan hydration vest rather than a 40 lb pack!

Do you like hiking? Do you have a favorite type of hike? What is your weekend hobby?

Moving Right Along

Today I take my brother and the lady to the airport and this marks the beginning of everything. I haven't really talked a lot about the Boston weekend, but it really is going to be quite an adventure. My brother and the lady will be arriving in Boston early for some sightseeing and shenanigans before the parentals join up. I will head that way in a few days, along with my Bay Area running buddies, one of whom is from New Hampshire and the other who has never been to Boston before.

We have matching shirts. Yup. They are my favorite color (sarcasm heavy here): PINK. It just happened to work out that I had a free pink tank that didn't have writing on it and my friend TJ bought a pink one as well (totally unrelated), so now we are going to be the three Pink Musketeers.

Saturday my family will celebrate my grandmother's 80th birthday with the whole family, who are coming from all over New England and other nearby areas.

Sunday will be the expo and a lot of food and more friends and then...I will probably start worrying about the weather and what time I should eat and whether or not I am going to have enough clothes or too many clothes or...

...and then before we know it, it will be 6 a.m. and I will be getting on the bus for Hopkinton, where I will then wait around for four hours, worrying about the weather and if I should eat and whether or not I should pee one last time and if I am not wearing enough clothes or if I am wearing too many...

...and then we will be off!

The stats:

- I am in Wave 2, Corral 4, which starts at 10:20 a.m.
- My bib number is 12333.
- If you want to track my progress, text runner to 345678 and then enter in my bib number when it prompts you to reply. 
- If you are watching it live or on TV, look for me. I will be wearing this:

If you see someone who is wearing the same shirt, but is not me, cheer for them; it is probably one of my running buds! 

**If you are going to be in Boston, let me know where to look for you! It's always nice to see a friendly face in the crowd! **

What are you doing the weekend? Do you like pink? Do you get nervous right before a big event?

The Bunny Hop

We have all done our share of Turkey Trots, but have you done any Bunny Hops lately?

For Easter weekend I went to the Broski residence for some Sonoma county shenanigans. You may think this means wine tasting, but Sonoma County has tons of things to do! On Saturday, we went out to Bodega Bay (have you seen the movie The Birds?) and walked the cliffs, searching for whales.

Watch for birds

We did not see any, but it is Grey Whale season! Afterward we went and got a nice bowl of clam chowder and a crab sandwich. It was yummy, but talk about cream/butter/mayo overload! However, it didn't stop us from stopping at the Wildflour bakery and getting a bacon maple blueberry cornmeal scone! Yup, that's one scone with all those things in it!

Doran Beach

On Easter morning, Broski and I got up nice and early to rain, which was a bad thing since our plan was to run to the in-laws house for lunch. They live about 9 miles away, but Broski did some cool stuff with his Garmin and mapped out a course to their house, including a loop through Annadel park, rounding off the run at about 17 miles total.

Annadel

 I had forgotten my shorts, of all things to forget, but luckily the lady friend had a pair from a certain decade that she let me borrow. I will let you guess what decade they are from. 

Zoom in. Guess the decade.

As soon as the rain slowed, we headed out. About two miles in, it began to pour on us. Luckily it only lasted a few miles and it stopped just as we reached the park for our loop through. The park was muddy and hilly, but it was beautiful and full of mossy trees, deer and turkeys. It was a great way for both of us to discover a new trail. We ended up at the in-laws house just in time for a quick dip in their (not heated!) pool, which was better than an ice bath, and then it was lunch time!

After lunch, we had an adult Easter hunt, aka a scavenger hunt, which was tons of fun. They have a lot of property with sheep and goats and chickens and peacocks (oh my!) and we had a blast running around scaring the animals while we searched for our next clue. And then I ate about 38 more deviled eggs.

As always, I got sent home with enough leftovers for two lunches (literally!), and a couple dozen farm fresh eggs, which is a real treat! We used to have chickens when I was a kid and I didn't realize how good I had it. Now I get them very rarely.

Did you have an Easter hunt, egg or otherwise? What era do you think those shorts are from? Have you ever had farm fresh eggs?

Step Back!

Today marks the start of the 15th week of Boston training. For those of you who have followed an 18 week training schedule, you know what that means. It means that this week is the highest mileage week in the training schedule. On the schedule this week is my last 20 miler, and a total of 58 miles for the week. I have to say, I will be glad when it is over. Not that I love the taper weeks, but it will be nice to be able to go for a bike ride, or a hike or a kickboxing class, and not have to worry about it cutting into precious running time.

Speaking of a bike ride, last week was a step back week, which means that my long run was only 12 miles and the total mileage for the week was a lot lower than this upcoming week. This did give me a little bit more freedom and I ran with it (ha! no pun intended).

On Sunday, I ran a 5k for Jill's Virtual St Patrick's Day run. It was a great day for it and I gave it my all, finishing in 21:46.

Then I bought a few more accessories for the bike (U-lock and cushy seat cover), I took it out for it's first REAL ride. I have been using it to run errands, like going to the grocery store or library, which are only about a mile from my house. There is one big hill between my house and the grocery store though and I can ride all the way up it one way but coming back it is steeper on that side and I have had to walk it up.

So I was pretty nervous about attempting a longer bike ride. There were a few things I worried about.

(1) That I would get hit by a car. Other people on the road don't always pay attention! I know this, because as a runner, I have come VERY close to being hit a few times. I always feel a bit smaller when a bus comes within a few inches of me. I feel very small in fact.

(2) That I would have to walk up all the hills. Ah, failure, how we fear thee.

(3) That my butt would be on fire by mile 4. Hence the new cushy seat cover.

The Beast, with a new hat for the seat and a fancy St. Patty's day U-lock.

As a runner, we have the same issues. Chafe, pains, fear of failure, and feelings of fragility. So I am used to them. So I said to myself that it is no different than what I am used to, and I got to it. My running friend broke her toe and she asked me if I wanted to ride to a pub that was about 16 miles from my house. Why not? You only live once. YOLO!

It went well. In fact, it went better than I thought it would. I did NOT get run over. We started in Oakland, going through the town for about 7 miles before we got to the SF Bay Trail, where we stayed until we reached Richmond. We stopped for a St. Patrick's day beer at a local pub and then we headed back. We tackled one big hill on the way back and I didn't get off the bike once. The cushioned butt pad was fabulous!

Point Richmond

When I got back to Oakland, I had a humongous burrito and then headed for my final two miles to get home. Unfortunately, the last mile has another fairly steep hill (0 ft - 200 ft in about a half a mile) and I just couldn't do it. These legs were toast and they had really started to realize it when I sat down to eat the burrito.  But I made it. So that's one ride over.

See that hill at the very end? It was brutal!

Total miles: 41.4
Average speed: 11.3 mph

I am pretty excited, because I have always thought I would like to try a triathlon, but it's the biking that was my biggest fear. Now I just need to get over this week's "hill" in my Boston Training (and the Marathon itself) and then I can work on getting better at my biking skills! 

What did you do for St. Patrick's Day? Have you ever done a long bike ride? How do you combat butt soreness?

Cream or Sugar?

A few days ago, I kind eavesdropped on Amber's virtual coffee date. She did most of the talking, but I really enjoyed it, so I thought I would invite you to have coffee with me and I would do some of the talking this time.

What are you having? I am buying. A latte? I am drinking a non-fat peppermint mocha, light on the mint, light on the chocolate. Double the whipped cream.

Things have been going well over here. The weather has been great and I have been enjoying it and getting outside and doing things. People talk about how San Francisco is the foggy city, but lately, it's been clear as a bell. Going to work, as ironic as it seems, has been great, since I have to go over the bay bridge and I get a view of the city each morning. It is like a little two minute pep talk each morning. It gets my day started right.

Speaking of work, it never gets old. About three months after I started, just as I was starting to understand what I was doing and to finally feel like I was doing things right, they switched me into a different department. Since then I have been slowly learning the ropes in the new position, but I have a long way to go. Every day I feel like I am behind. However, I have talked to others in the office and have been told you never DO feel caught up. The name of the game is prioritizing. I am learning how to do it better, but it's a game I am not quite used to playing yet.

Speaking of playing games, I have been having a great time meeting up with old friends from the Bay Area. I went running with one of them who was about to run her first marathon, I met up with another at First Friday and I had a great time going to the Muse concert with Broski last week. We bought tall beer cans at the corner market and put them in paper bags and pretended we were 17 years old, sneaking around behind the woodshed, drinking stolen beers from our parent's basement refrigerator. Not that I ever did that, but I heard that some people did.

Speaking of beers, this weekend was part of the SF Beer Week (which is still going on through next weekend) where you get a taster sized glass and you get to try a bunch of different kinds of beers in the same place. Also, many of them are beers you would not normally get. They are from smaller, lesser known breweries and are often from out of town. Saturday, I went to the Double IPA Fest with Broski and friends, where the beers and the beards were flowing. Yes, there were a lot of bearded dudes there. I found a new favorite beer Societe Brewing Co's Double IPA and I met the brewer, Doug, who was a nice guy on top of making a great beer. On Sunday, we went to the Sour Beer Fest and found another great beer: the Upright Brewery "Four". 

Let me summarize: Ladies, if you are single and you are looking for a bearded brewer who likes drinking beer, you should go to beer week. It was probably 80% men. Of those, 73% of them were bearded.

Although I haven't been talking about it much, I am also still running a lot. There are a couple of recaps in the works, but let me tell you that Broski was involved again! He is really on a roll folks! Other than that, there has been much training for Boston, running up and down hills, applying sunscreen, doing multiple loads of stinky laundry and plenty of listening to Pandora. My new favorite running station is the Rap Strength Training station. It really gets my feet moving!

So, now that you have had your latte and I have unloaded on you, tell me:

What's new in your life? What did you do over the weekend? What do have planned for the next week?

Karma Police

I must have done something wrong because this weekend it was one of those weekends where all kinds of weird stuff happened. Friday started out pretty good, with some time in Uptown Oakland, where there is a monthly street fair called the Art Murmur (or First Friday) where you can walk around, eat street food, look at art and listen to music. It was quite fun. Until this happened. Luckily I didn't find out about this until the next day.

I left around 10:30 and headed home. The next day I realized my wallet was missing. I know I had it when I got on the bus, because I took my bus pass out of it to get on the bus. Somewhere between getting on the bus and getting home, it went missing. I know also that someone took it and it's not just hidden in the inside pocket of my jacket, because I checked my accounts online and there were purchases on there that I hadn't made. The ironic part? They only spent $1.75 at Safeway (grocery store), $2.50 at 711 and $40 at Chevron. That's it. If I stole a credit card, I would go on a way bigger shopping spree than that!

So I spent Saturday first trying to remember everything that I had in my wallet. Do you know exactly what you have in yours? It took me a while and I am still not sure that I remembered all of them. Then I started calling to cancel my cards. The cards aren't the crappy part though; the purchases on them can be reversed and I will get new ones in the mail in 3-5 days. The worst is the drivers license. Getting a new one entails going to the DMV, which is only open from 8 - 5 on weekdays, hence causing me to miss work to go over there to stand in line for hours. Argh.

SF Bay Trail

Sunday I decided to erase any bad events from the past few days and take a nice long run along the bay. It was a beautiful day and the run was going pretty well until I was running along minding my own business when an unleashed dog bounded up to me, jumped on me and knocked me down onto the pavement. Remember when I fell before? Well this time I fell on the opposite knee and hand so I have matching pairs. Hurray. I didn't even take time to get mad at the guy whose dog was supposed to be leashed before heading off to finish the run.

And then the Niners lost.

Watch out for the Karma police. They are a B. Itch.

Have you ever had a series of strange events happen to you? Do you believe in Karma? Have you ever had your wallet stolen/lost?

Weekend Activities

Last weekend was a crazy busy one. The last weekends of summer are upon us and everyone is trying to cram everything in while they can! I had two great days with family and friend filled events on each one.

Friday night included drinks out with friends at the Pier 23 cafe in San Francisco.  They were giving away free samples of Air, which is a beer mixed with carbonated water. It was gross. I was not compensated to say that.

Saturday started early with a really nice walk with a friend in the morning. After that, it was my grandma's 80th birthday party. She is my father's mother. My father is one of six kids, each with kids and some of them with kids! In addition to that, there were several cousins, step this and thats, in-laws and other friends of the family. I think all in all we were maybe 50, maybe more. It was held in the North Bay Area, in a park where there was a fabulous view of the city across the bay. We ate WAY too much food, but I did it in the name of carb-loading. A perk of being a runner? Everything is in the name of "carb-loading".

My favorite part of the party? My cousin made us color coordinated name tags. I was wearing a yellow shirt. By saying that, I just realized that I didn't get any photos of myself that day.

After the party, I raced to get to the race expo in time to pick up my bib. Then I went over to my brother's house and he made us a hearty carb loading Mexican Fiesta with fresh veggies from his garden! We had steak, fresh made salsa, black beans and rice! It was delicious! And I was so busy visiting I didn't take any photos of that either!

I got up early on Sunday morning for the marathon where I ran my buns off. My family was there to support me and luckily the course was conducive to their being able to see me several times. I will do a real recap in a couple of days, but for now, just check this out!

Holy crap; I am so excited. I don't think it hit me until I was writing up this post... I mean... WOO HOO!

After the race, I had a great brunch with my family at the Omelette Express, did some grocery shopping, watered the garden, made my lunches for the week and then passed the heck out! I feel like I need a vacation from my weekend!

How was your weekend? Are you trying to cram it all in at the very end of summer? Have you ever been to Sonoma county?

Shoot the Breeze

I went to a friend's house last weekend for her daughter's 2nd birthday party. The good thing about 2nd birthdays is that the kid doesn't care if there are other kids there or if it's just an excuse for all of Mom and Dad's friends to get together at a party with a Mickey Mouse theme and eat cupcakes and shoot the breeze. My friend's parents and her husband's parents were also there. We had a great time hanging out and I even wore a dress, just for fun. I am normally a pants wearer; I have an aversion to my own knees. So this was a big deal.

Here are some of the conversations that were floating around. They will be A and I will be Me.

A: You look nice. What's the occasion?
Me: It's 104 degrees in your neck of the woods. (it was 75 in Oakland)
A: I know; that's why I am not wearing a shirt and I am sweating and I am downing beers like it's going out of style.
Me: Oh? That's why? I just thought that was your normal Saturday style.
A: Actually, it is.

A: So you have a race tomorrow?
Me: Yep
A: How far is it?
Me: 50k
A: (quizzical look on face) How far is that?
Me: 31 miles
A: (shocked look on face) 31 Miles? How long will that take?
Me: About 6 hours
A: (incredulous look on face) 6 hours! That's crazy!
(as I secretly agree and start to doubt why the heck I am doing this race)

A: So you must eat really healthy since you run so much
(as I am stuffing my face with my third coconut toasted cupcake in less than 5 minutes in the name of "carb loading")

A: My niece ran a marathon in Hawaii. You should do that one. I am not sure how far her marathon was though. Maybe yours is longer.

On Sunday, I ran the race. All 31 miles of it. I did not die. I will do a recap later. All I can say right now is:

Dear Toilet -- Were you always so low? I think you should be about 2 feet taller so I can stand up and don't have to bend my knees to use you.

Dear Belly -- When are you going to stop crying out for food? You are insatiable.

Dear Feet -- I am deeply sorry. I have abused you greatly. Will you ever forgive me?

How was your weekend? Do you ever have weird conversations (about running or anything else) with your friends' families? Do you have any "dear" questions for anyone today?

An Apple a Day Monday: I

As you may know, fall is apple season. You are probably tired of the “pick your own apple” places and all the apple hype, but I am not. I love apples. I am so happy to have several trees to “pick” from at home. Last weekend, an orchard near us invited everyone to come join them in picking the last of their apples and making cider from them. You could bring your own apples if you liked, even knobby, small or slightly holey ones or you could use their apples if you didn’t have your own (free of charge). Once picked, the apples went into a hand cranked cider press and came out as cider! It was great fun! We brought some of our own apples, picked some of theirs (and ate many of theirs!) and hand pressed our own yummy apple cider.

There was also a pot-luck, so we brought a dish to share and some chairs and hung out all day with friends and family, chatting, taking photos, eating apples and enjoying the fall weather (which has been unseasonably warm this year!)

Next up: There is more than one way to skin an apple. Don’t forget to check back next Monday to find out how...and for another edition of “An Apple a Day”, which will be a feature each Monday in November.

What is your favorite apple related food? Have you ever picked your own apples? How do you get YOUR apple a day?